The Paleo Environment

Environmental Toxicity

It's not only what you eat that matters - but everything that you surround your body with.

Much more detail on all of these factors can be found in the Paleo Lifestyle section, particularly within our ``Chemicals, Toxins, Pollutants`` page. However, if you're focusing on the environment in which you live, some essential things to watch for are below.

Everything that surrounds our lives leaves a residue. Pollution, chemicals in the water supply, micro-beads in the ocean and pharmaceuticals and drugs being flushed into sewage systems and seeping back into our lives through other waters…. All of this has an influence. All the details on everything that might prove potentially toxic can be found in our Chemicals, Toxins, Pollution & Moulds Page (linked from this section's title). However, we are also mindful that everything can be taken to extremes. Everything about toxicity is to do with the overall burden. There are broad swathes of environmental pollutants that you will have absolutely no control over. Toxins are all about the overall quantity and load, however. That's why we believe that the more you can be aware of the potential toxin contributors to your life - from moulds to pesticides to water and air pollutants - the better.

Plastics & Food Storage

When you choose to eat Paleo you are automatically spending a lot on food. Plastic containers, whilst extremely useful, are not benign storage vessels. They can leech chemicals and xeno-oestrogens into the products they store - and this is not just limited to the more well-known 'BPA' (now well-known as a toxic plastic and banned from products such as baby toys). Plastic chemicals are increasingly shown to affect human metabolism and hormones, and the more fluid, the higher the mineral content and the hotter the product stored, the more chemicals from the plastics can be found in the foods they contained. There are easy alternatives to plastics (glass, china etc.) and this is one of those cases where it truly is better safe than sorry. There may be things we don't yet even know about the damage from plastic toxicity and removing your foods' exposure to plastic is a simple way to reduce your exposure to the toxins it contains. In so doing, your overall toxin burden can be reduced.

Every chemical you use to clean your home is a powerful, manmade substance which is designed to kill bacteria, erode grease, blast through stains and annihilate dirt. These chemicals affect your body just as much as they affect the surfaces you are trying to clean. Their fumes also become airborne and we will breath in the chemical vapours. This, perhaps obviously, is not entirely healthy for our lungs, our skin (particularly if cleaning with bare hands) and our internal detoxification systems. The household product ranges in shops are alarmingly vast, and the chemical load inside them dizzyingly high. And yet, when you look at the non-chemical alternatives that are actually perfectly natural, multi-purpose solutions such as vinegars and lemon juice or other acids with bicarbonate of soda. These 'old grandmother' solutions actually do sterling work of cleaning our homes - and it is surprising but the natural substances can be just as powerful on dirt as the chemicals, without the toxic effect to humans. And the one thing that the chemicals do is make us overly hygienic. By using products to sterilise our bacterial environment we can also eliminate the bacterial companions inside us which we rely on for many things. An anti-bacterial product will kill bugs on AND IN you, not just on your surfaces. This might not be quite like taking antibiotics (which can ruin your intestinal milieu) but almost. It is definitely worth investigating alternatives (click the link in this section's title for more). And a bonus? As one solution (homemade) can perform so many cleaning roles, this way (for once!) tends to be far cheaper than the path of chemical household cleaners.

You skin is highly absorbent and the products that you use on it will transfer into your body relatively quickly. Eating immaculately is one thing but if you use chemical-laden beauty products you are still 'consuming' toxins. There are few resources in the UK for good quality products - and no, 'organic' doesn’t cut it. We've given some sourcing recommendations in our 'Resources' Section but please do check out our overview of the background info on beauty products in our “Chemicals, Toxins, Pollution, Mould” Page (linked from this section's title).

At Paleo in the UK we don’t believe in nonsense, we believe in science. And much as you might like to dismiss it as nonsense, there is real science behind the fact that the body has an electromagnetic field and the earth also resonates at a specific frequency. Any electric product also emits frequencies. When these frequencies are in the way of you and the earth or you and your fellow humans and/or surrounding has an impact on your energy and your frequency. The reality is that our electromagnetic field has a role in many mitochondrial functions. Disrupting this frequency can, and does, have collateral damage. There are whole expert sites set up to cover the role of EMFs, and at Paleo in the UK we advocate a measured and practical reading of the science. But this is an area of increasing research - and the results aren't great. You can find more details on all of these frequencies on our ``Chemicals, Toxins, Pollution, Moulds`` (linked from the title).

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